From a St. Louis sports perspective, few things deliver the entertainment power of a fake punch quite like pro wrestling night at the South Broadway Athletic Club in Soulard, featuring the stars of the MMWA-SICW.

And since you’re now probably wondering, the answer is “No.” Nobody knows what MMWA-SICW stands for. And whenever anyone asks, another letter is added. So please, just let it go.

For the pro wrestling purist however, it’s a real treat. It’s like the Class A ball – or maybe more accurately the Appalachian Rookie League – of the WWE. There’s no million-dollar egos, no backroom corruption, no steroids. On the contrary, many of the wrestlers here could stand to lift a dumbbell or two.

Instead, these guys compete for the love of the sport, or more accurately the sports-based entertainment. There are names like Big Texan, Ace Hawkins, Johnny Courageous, the Lumberjacks (and they’re okay). These guys are all extremely affable with the fans, and it was pretty easy to get a picture taken with them.

For the most part, the crowd was what you might expect, making the upper bowl of a Blues game look like an auditorium full of PhDs attending an astrophysics lecture. Chants of “U-S-A!” broke out throughout the night several times. Chants of “Jer-ry!” did not. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Even still, it’s a remarkably diverse crowd: young, old, male, female. There were even a few celebrities in the house, like Terry B. Crouppen of the legal dynamic duo Brown & Crouppen – the proverbial Robin to Ron Brown’s Batman. When you think about it, where else would St. Louis’ foremost ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer be on a Saturday night? It makes perfect sense. If someone splits a skull on the business end of a folding chair, he’s right there.

And turns out it’s a great place to host your small child’s birthday party, complete with an appropriately-themed cake.

The best part though has to be the prices, which have been rolled back to the days of Wrestling at the Chase. Beer is two dollars. For the more sophisticated palate there’s a wine list, featuring your choice of…red or white. Actually, the house Chablis – although pronounced [sha-bliss] by the wait staff – is to die for.

And just when the night couldn’t get any more surreal, an all-too-familiar face to the loyal readers of JSF entered the squared circle: